KYIV: A new round of Moscow’s shelling and drone attacks killed five people in Ukraine Sunday, authorities said, while Kyiv hit an oil refinery in Russia’s Saratov region.
There was no reduction in hostilities on the frontline, even as the United States and Russia agreed to hold a summit in a bid to resolve the conflict, which so far does not include Ukraine.
“Three people killed, one wounded in Zaporizhzhia region as a result of Russian shelling,” Ukraine’s national police said, adding that two more civilians died in the highly contested Donetsk region in the east.
A Russian glide bomb hit a busy bus station in the city of Zaporizhzhia in a separate afternoon strike, wounding 12 people at once, the local officials said, adding that a search and rescue operation was still ongoing.
Visuals from the site shared by the authorities showed rescuers pulling people from the rubble in the shattered central bus station building.
Three beachgoers were killed earlier in the Black Sea coastal city of Odesa, after they triggered a mine while swimming in a prohibited area which was mined.
The Ukrainian army claimed its drones had hit a large oil refinery in Russia’s western Saratov region, almost 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) away from the front line.
The Saratov governor, Roman Busargin, only gave a vague comment, saying that “one of the industrial enterprises was damaged” and adding that one person died as a result of the drone attack.
Another woman died in Russia’s region of Belgorod, often under Ukrainian fire due to its proximity to the frontline, the local governor said.
Kyiv is trying to hamper Moscow’s ability to fund the more than three-year war of attrition by attacking its oil and gas facilities, the key sources fueling the state budget.
Ukraine’s military claimed to have taken back the village of Bezsalivka in the Sumy region from the Russian army, which has made significant recent gains.
The focus of the Russian offensive is on eastern Ukraine, where it has stepped up gains in recent months against its less well-equipped opponents.
Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will meet in the US state of Alaska this Friday to try to resolve the grinding conflict, despite warnings from Ukraine and Europe that Kyiv must be part of negotiations.
Moscow strikes kill five in Ukraine, refinery hit in Russia
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Moscow strikes kill five in Ukraine, refinery hit in Russia
- A Russian glide bomb hit a busy bus station in the city of Zaporizhzhia on Sunday, wounding 12 people at once
- Kyiv is trying to hamper Moscow’s ability to fund the more than three-year war of attrition by attacking its energy facilities
Neighbors of alleged Bondi gunmen shocked by deadly rampage
SYDNEY: Like many people in Sydney, Glenn Nelson spent his Sunday evening watching television coverage of a deadly shooting on the city’s iconic Bondi Beach.
But stepping onto his front porch, flanked by neatly trimmed box hedges, he saw armed police cordoning off the street before raiding the house opposite — home of the two suspects who are alleged to have killed 15 people in Australia’s worst mass shooting in decades.
“I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll catch the rest in the morning,’ the next thing, the drama is out the front door,” he said in an interview on Monday, shortly after mowing his lawn.
Nelson and other neighbors said the family living across the street kept to themselves, but seemed like any other in the suburb of Bonnyrigg, a working-class, well-kept enclave with an ethnically diverse population around 36 km (22 miles) by road from Sydney’s central business district.
Local media named the two suspected gunmen as father and son Sajid and Naveed Akram.
Police have not named the suspects, but they said the older man, 50, was killed at the scene, taking the number of dead to 16, while his 24-year-old son was in a critical condition in hospital.
Police said the son was known to authorities and the father had a firearms license.
The Sydney Morning Herald spoke to a woman on Sunday evening who identified herself as the wife and mother of the suspects.
She said the two men had told her they were going on a fishing trip before heading to Bondi and opening fire on an event celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.
“I always see the man and the woman and the son,” said 66-year-old Lemanatua Fatu, who lives across the street.
“They are normal people.”
Until Sunday’s shooting, Bonnyrigg was an otherwise unremarkable neighborhood typical of Sydney’s sprawling Western suburbs.
It has significant Vietnamese and Chinese communities, along with many residents who were born in Iraq, Cambodia and Laos, according to government data.
The town center, a strip mall with a large adjoining car park, is flanked by a mosque, a Buddhist temple and several churches.
“It’s a quiet area, very quiet,” Fatu said. “And people mind their own business, doing their own thing — until now.”
Not much is currently known about the suspects’ backgrounds.
A Facebook post from an Arabic and Qur'an studies institute appearing to show one of the men was removed on Monday and no one answered the door at an address listed for it in the neighboring suburb of Heckenberg.
On Monday afternoon, as police took down their cordon, several people re-entered the house, covering their faces. They made no comment to the media and did not answer the door.
